Coldplay Sued For Plagiarism

Rock guitarist Joe Satriani has sued British band Coldplay, accusing the Grammy-nominated stars of plagiarizing one of his songs.

Satriani's copyright infringement suit, filed on Thursday in Los Angeles federal court, claims the Coldplay song "Viva La Vida" incorporates "substantial original portions" of his 2004 instrumental "If I Could Fly."

The 52-year-old guitar virtuoso is seeking a jury trial, damages and "any and all profits" attributable to the alleged copyright infringement.

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Comments

[janx]

True, it's the same, but this is a standard progression and an obvious voicing and phrasing for the melody. There have been dozens of pop and dance tunes written with this same progression and general melody. Don't get me wrong...I'­m not a Cold Play fan but why sue them when you could just as easily sue Satriani or the other dozen who have written the same tune? Where do you draw the line?
I've been writing songs for a living for over 30 years and I generally hear the same 10 songs on the radio over and over. All of them written by different people kicking the same dead horse. This is done so that the industry makes money and the writer pays the bills. 95% of the population wants to hear the same songs repeated even when they don't realize they are indeed the same. It's like comfort food.
Where does one draw the line? My threshold of tolerance for plagiarism is low because I dysect every song I hear, but someone who knows little about music or harmony has a much higher threshold.
In terms of copywrite infringement, it's the melody that matters most. That is how so many people get away with sampling other peoples progressions. He could probably win the suit.

[NaturesNurturer]

Re: My last comment.

Radiohead's song LIFT was actually released in 1996, sorry, not 1998.
But my boyfriend also pointed out interestin­gly.... that when it was performed live at the Pinkpop festival..­. Thom Yorke is wearing a YELLOW RAIN SUIT. In the Coldplay video for the song "YELLOW" Chris Martin is wearing a green RAIN SUIT. Watch and listen for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3-4fK8h8ig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjYeDh7Qkqs

[NaturesNurturer]

Wouldn't be the first time Coldplay has ripped off another band....

Compare Coldplay's "High Speed" with Radiohead's "Subterranean Homesick Alien"

OR

Coldplay's "Yellow" with a little known Radiohead song, "Lift" (which by the way was AWESOME). Methinks Radiohead reworked Lift when they started playing it live again a couple years to distinguish the song from Yellow. Too bad too.... b/c the original version of Lift (1998) was much better.

Coldplay = overrated. I thought Rush of Blood was a pretty good album but the last two have been downhill from there. And Chris Martin has become a total cheeseball on stage too.

[AdV2k1]

cold play version is better the other band is just jealous because they suck.

are they similar, i'll admit its similar but not identical.

[eddie80]

sounds like they've got 'em cold
I feel certain that the copy was not intentional, but it is a copy, even the same key, rhythm, everything. c'est dommage

[Turtleposer]

I heard that Muzak just filed a lawsuit against both Coldplay and Satriani.

[bartonfink]

good one. I thought I heard satriani's surfing with the alien the other day when I was getting my teeth cleaned

[Turtleposer]

Thanks. I'm glad you brought up teeth cleaning. The American Dental Association was going to recommend those songs as a substitute for anesthesia pending FDA approval.

[pipp]

Total Karaoke.

[darthdarcy]

Karaoke Kills...

[XME]

There are a lot of songs that have similar chords. That doesn't mean the written "stole" it, or that they even heard a song that sounds similar. People CAN come up with similar music...se­ems to me there should have to be proof that they heard and stole the riff.

[Aleka4]

LOL this is just silly.

They say if you put 100 monkeys in a room with typewriters eventually one will type Shakespeare. There are only so many different ways to write a song, and I think it co-incidence.

[pipp]

What....ju­st because he's married to Gweneth, he thinks he can get by with flagrant plagarism. Cold Copy Cat.

[jackstpaul]

infinite monkeys, with infinite typewriters, for infinity..­.

[ENK727]

They should get togethe and release a new version. It sounds great mixed together.

[lolyla]

Those are awfully similar. Hope Coldplay has a good attorney (or team of attorneys).

[stratcat4242]

I'm a musician, and my thoughts on this are that yes the main hook or melody is similar. I like Joe and Coldplay, both are accomplished musicians in their own right and genre. One of the guys in coldplay probably heard Joe's song at one point and the melody stuck in his head and it got filed away in his subconcious mind as good or bad music will do. So as the musicians in Coldplay were collaborating and writing Viva La Vida one of them says hey I've got this great groove and they build upon it, each putting his own creative part into it without realizing they have built this great song around Joe's simple melody. Was it intentional, very hard to say.

[pipp]

Come on Man...it's more than a great similar groove....­.you can practically lay those tracks on top of each other.

[VOTER]

Correct.

Coldplay is rightly on the hot plate with this one.

[MadamRoma]

Rip-off, complete rip-off, sue.......­.sue......­..sue.....­..sue.....­....sue their britches off, then sue 'em some more. Nothing changes someone's "tune" like a lawsuit.

[dmadison]

"If I could Fly" sounds suspiciously like Steely Dan's "Reelin' In the Years" in parts ----

[Vinquus]

It's a tiny snippet with the same chords. Loads of songs have the same chord progressions, because only certain sequences are harmonious. The comparison obviously ends where the songs diverge, which is where Coldplay's song starts its hook and Satriani's presumably wanders off into more of his self-indulgent showboating.